Saturday, January 12, 2008

Spam as Felony

As I kill time before today's games, a thought that often comes to me crossed my mind again. In all of the talk about Spam email and its various annoyances, why isn't the issue of fraud a part of this discussion. Spam is an annoyance, but it is often more than that. If you send me an email claiming that there is a problem with my bank account, and you are not actually a representative from my bank, how have you not committed about a dozen fairly serious crimes? Some try to couch spam discussions as matters of free speech, but there is no protection for attempting to defraud someone.

Obviously most of these emails fall into the category of petty irritants. If I don't have an account at the community federal credit union that is in the dire straits that you claim it is, that simply clutters my inbox. Such phishing expeditions still ought to be patently illegal, but their odds of doing me harm are minimal. However, more and more, likely based purely on the sheer amount of email I receive and the probability that comes with it, I receive emails allegedly from banks and other institutions (Amazon being a common example) with which I do business. I know that my bank does not contact me by email, but Amazon does, as do others. At this point, the risk of fraud increases substantially and such spam crosses from being a bother to being potentially devastating. Ho are attempts to defraud thousands, maybe millions, of people in one fell swoop not considered significant threats?